


my heart is in my pocket

by getmean



Series: sledgefu week 2019 [2]
Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Arguing, Established Relationship, M/M, Making Up, Meditations on childhood and growing up in poverty, Miscommunication, Post-Canon, Sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 10:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18754501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: Snafu doesn’t often dwell on it for fear that he’ll uncover some kind of fundamental flaw in himself that makes him so goddamn mean and tight and grudgingly — if ever — generous. But the fuse has been lit now, or rather just the match; hovering so close to the eventual explosion of understanding that Snafu can feel the heat of it. Can smell the gunpowder in his nostrils.





	my heart is in my pocket

**Author's Note:**

> submission for the 'sharing' prompt for this year's sledgefu week!

Snafu settles the kettle onto the stovetop; coaxing the little blue ring of flames to light with a practised hand. A little nudge to the knob, just leaning close to blow lightly on the ring, and then — he grins, and steps back as it flares to life. Eugene has been complaining to their landlord for going on three months about the damn thing, and all he’s had back was some half-assed response about gas lines almost six weeks ago. Mostly he was mad that he hadn’t mastered the trick of getting it to light, or at least that was Snafu’s theory. Having a stove that lit at all was a near luxury to him as it was. 

“Water’s gone brown again!” Euene calls through from the bathroom, judging by the slight echo of his voice. Snafu sighs, pressing his forearm to his sweaty face as he moves across the room to shove the windows open. It does little to stir the hot, heavy air of the room; one of the windows stuck shut in the frame from how the wood had swollen. “Snafu!” Eugene yells, and Snafu sucks his teeth, irritable from the heat. 

“Use the hot water instead!” He throws back, wandering back to the kettle, which was now near boiling. He had to keep an eye on it; they’d bought it second-hand and it had no whistle; the amount of times Snafu had forgotten about it and let the water burn off to nothing were too numerous to count. He takes it off the hob, just as Eugene calls his name again. “Jesus, Gene,” He snaps, abandoning any idea of a cup of coffee before he had to leave for work as he stalks through the main room towards the bathroom. “I’m coming!”

He lingers in the doorway; their bathroom far too tiny for two people to comfortably share floor space. Eugene looks both washed out and flushed when he turns to shoot Snafu a helpless look; from the heat, from the unflattering fluorescent that Snafu has never worked out how to stop _flickering_.

“I just wanna brush my teeth.” He says, eyes pleading as he gestures with his toothbrush to the thin trickle of brown water dribbling from the faucet. “Is that too much to ask?”

“I guess it is, Gene.” Snafu grunts, cramming into the room beside him, growing more hot and irritable as the seconds tick by. “It’s the fucking pipes, we’ve been through this.”

Eugene bristles, watching as Snafu turns the faucet off. “I know it’s the fucking pipes, Snafu.” 

“Then what’s the problem?” He snaps, immediately regretting his tone as Eugene’s expression twists. “Gene, c’mon. What am I s’posed to do?”

“Fix it!” He bites out, and Snafu follows him as he marches off to the kitchen; toothbrush clutched in his hand as he crosses the main room that houses their kitchen, their dining table, and the bed. The morning light is strewn across the counters as he pulls up short at the kitchen sink; a twist of the faucet produces more brown water, and Eugene’s expression darkens. Snafu scrubs a hand over his face, all thoughts of a quiet morning abandoned as Eugene shuts the water off and turns to him.

“It ain’t all my responsibility.” He mutters, tiredly. Eugene works his jaw, arms crossed over his chest as his eyes flick over Snafu’s face; his own tight and blotchy with the heat, with irritation. “I can’t snap my fuckin’ fingers and make it all magically work again. It ain’t my fault.”

Eugene’s eyes flit away. “You moved us here.” He mutters, the quietness of his voice more hurtful than it’d be if he was shouting. The hurt twists easily into anger, and Snafu is turning away from him before he can even register it; back to the kettle, back to his coffee, shutting Gene out as effectively as he can.

“You ain’t under any obligation to stay.” He snaps, vocal cords strangled tight with anger. He grabs a mug from the small army cluttered together on the kitchen shelf; spooning sugar into it as he listens to Eugene scoff and then move away. The creak of the old wood floors under his feet; Snafu can track him easily as he wanders to the bed, to the dining table, and then the door slams behind him with a crash, the glass rattling in the frame. 

Slowly, slowly, Snafu lets the tension ease from his muscles. Exhales anger. Inhales the steadying aroma of coffee. _It ain’t always like this_ , he says to himself, internal voice small but fierce. _It ain’t always like this._ His own personal mantra whenever he and Eugene flare up at each other; the both of them too quick to temper these days. Like if they yell loud enough it’ll drown out everything going on inside them. 

He drinks his coffee, leaned up against the cracked kitchen sink as he gazes out past the open window, frayed nerves settling in the silence of the sunlit apartment. On mornings like this, it’s almost easy to forget how shitty the place is. Snafu lets himself get wrapped up in it; the warmth, the silence, everything he’d thought would heal them by moving out here. Some sweltering little apartment outside of New Orleans; the rent is low but he and Eugene don’t pull in much money between them. Snafu had been drawn by the trees surrounding the place. Eugene had been drawn by him. 

A bug flits around the room, ricocheting off the glass of the struck-shut window before it makes it’s drunken route outside. Snafu checks his watch, setting his mug down in the sink as he steps over to where his work boots are lined up next to the door with Eugene’s tennis shoes. It’s either make it to work on time, or investigate the rusted pipes once more, just to say he has and to appease Eugene. But the argument is still too close in his mind, and he doesn’t feel sorry enough yet as he lights a cigarette while he heads out, locking the door behind him. The water was brown a week ago. The water will be brown when he returns. No rush.

—————

Despite the morning’s water fiasco, Snafu is looking forward to Eugene coming home that night. He’s wandering home after work; a cigarette between his lips and a shoppers bag dangling from his elbow as his mind already races ahead to making up with Eugene that night. Maybe a long, slow session once the sun sets and they get a little relief from the hellish heat of their apartment. Maybe Eugene will scratch his nails through Snafu’s hair and read to him, or maybe, or maybe — 

The possibilities are endless, and it feels good. Feels good to share his life with someone who makes him feel like that. Despite their arguing, despite Eugene’s stubbornness, despite his own short temper. It’s hard, but they’re happy for the most part and able to make up when they’re not, which Snafu cherishes above all else. Both of them still in that uncomfortable, liminal period where the war is hovering too close over their shoulder but their fingertips are just grazing the very edge of their future. Healing. Finding their feet after the war, after Eugene had gotten off that train with Snafu and put into motion something so impossible, so improbable, that Snafu was sure sometimes he dreamt it.

The six pack and the loaf of bread in the shoppers bag grow heavier and heavier as Snafu takes the rusty metal steps leading up to their second story apartment two at a time, huffing with the exertion. The railing is burning hot under his palm as it always is; heated dangerously by the late afternoon sun. He’d knocked off early for the day, happy to head home and dream up a plan to get into Eugene’s good books before the weekend. He works the door open; wood swollen in its frame just as the window is, and it unsticks, sending him stumbling into the apartment, which is so hot inside it knocks him near breathless.

“Fuck.” He mutters, dropping the bag down on the dining table as he moves to shove the windows open, before sliding the beer into the fridge and a carton of eggs out of it. It’s scrambled eggs for supper, just as it was for breakfast, just as it will be for tomorrow’s lunch. He and Eugene seem to exist in a perpetual state of strapped for cash, despite the two of them holding down full time jobs. Eugene blames Snafu’s habit for thrifting. Snafu blames Eugene’s habit for expensive soap. 

He sips at a beer as he makes his eggs; peppery and salty, plenty of hot sauce shaken over them as he hums along to a tune on the radio. It’s the hour or so of alone time that he gets to enjoy before Eugene gets home from work; unwinding in his own way before he unwinds further with Gene. The water runs clear when he goes to rinse the saucepan, and he mentally prays for it to remain like that until the weekend, when he can take a real look at the pipes. 

Eugene comes home not long after Snafu makes himself another plate of eggs; still hungry from his long, hard day at work. The physical labour of working at a sawmill is satisfying in some ways, and just plain tiring in others. Today the exhaustion outweighs the satisfaction.

“Hey.” He murmurs, setting his fork down as Eugene crosses the room to kiss him hello, red faced and tired and leaning heavy on Snafu’s shoulder. “How was work?”

“’Bout as bad as usual.” He mumbles, hand sliding to the nape of Snafu’s neck as he steadies himself, stepping out of his shoes. “You?”

“Hard.” Snafu answers, catching hold of Eugene’s hand and turning it over. He kisses his palm, eyes on Eugene’s face as his mouth lifts in a tired smile.

“I’m still mad at you.” He says, cracking one eye open to watch Snafu kiss at his fingertips. Snafu gazes up at him, pulled in by those big brown eyes. “I mean it.”

“I’m sorry.” Snafu says, as earnestly as he can muster. He releases Eugene; watching him wander to the kitchen counter and snatch up the pack of smokes there. He shakes one out, eyes on the floor until he lights it, and they flicker back to Snafu.

“I’m sorry too.” He glances away, shifting the ashtray closer to him. “I didn’t mean any of that.”

Snafu just shrugs. “Water’s clear, anyway. For now.”

The smile that splits Eugene’s face at that news is almost worth the fight that morning. “Really?” He asks, his sweet, summer-freckled face glowing with the news. “Jesus, I feel fuckin’ lousy too, it’s about time.”

Snafu laughs, and gestures towards the bathroom with his fork. “Better get to it before you fuckin’ jinx it.”

Eugene rounds the kitchen table to pass his cigarette off to Snafu, that smile still slapped silly on his face. “Yessir.” He says, leaning in close enough for Snafu to smell the sweat on him, the freshness of his laundry detergent under it. He wonders if they smell the same, warmth blooming in his chest at the thought. “Gimme some eggs first.” He adds, tapping on the back of Snafu’s hand for his fork. “I’m starved.”

Snafu snorts, tipping his head back to meet Eugene’s gaze as he tries to work out whether he’s kidding or not. “No.” He mutters, frowning as he finds no trace of a joke on Eugene’s face. “I just cooked it.”

Eugene blinks, surprised. “What?”

There’s something stubborn spreading in Snafu’s chest, eclipsing that warm, affectionate feeling. Stubborn, hard to describe. Eugene draws his hand back, brows pulling together as he realises Snafu isn’t joking. He sees the annoyance flit around his face; but that stubbornness persists. 

“Gene, there’s plenty eggs.” He says, as Eugene steps away from him. He can’t quite put his finger on why Eugene cares; it’s _his_ food, and nothing to stop Eugene making his own. “I can cook you some.”

“But what if I wanted yours?” Eugene asks, slow, and Snafu knows that he already knows the answer. He shrugs, helplessly, unable to put words to the odd unrelenting discomfort the idea gives rise to, and Eugene rolls his eyes. “Jesus, you can be so fuckin’ selfish sometimes, Snaf.”

Before Snafu can conjure a response, Eugene is leaving, running a hand through his hair as he mumbles something intelligible to himself. A moment later Snafu hears the click of the bathroom door shutting, and then the noise of the shower. He’s left alone with his food, with his beer, with the evening sunlight spreading warm across the floor, dappled light through the trees. With Eugene’s words running through his brain. _Selfish_.

It’s not the first time Eugene has called him that.

He cooks Eugene his own supper as some half-baked apology, trying not to let Eugene’s works stick too fast. They sit together at the table in silence; Eugene’s red hair wet and curling at his nape, smelling fresh and floral but stony faced opposite Snafu. He watches him eat, lit golden by the waning evening sunlight coming through the windows, and wonders just why it doesn’t feel good. That curling and uncurling of unpleasantness in the pit of his stomach, compounded upon by Eugene’s annoyed quiet. The radio fills the silence between them, and beyond that the sound of the world outside; birds, bugs, the sporadic sound of cars passing by. It’s easy to get bogged down in the stickiness of insecure thoughts in silence like that; and Snafu sits there in his chair and smokes and turns his and Eugene’s arguments over in his mind. Eugene sat opposite, sweetly oblivious as he eats the food Snafu had cooked him.

The matter of Snafu’s openness with sharing had come up multiple times since they had started out on this rocky slope from war into their future. Or rather, his _lack_ of openness to sharing and giving that seems to come so naturally to Eugene. He had noticed early on that Eugene didn’t have many qualms about things like that; tipping well, sharing his food, clothes, money, giving handouts to people on the street. It had only stood out so brazenly because it was just so _odd_ to him, this ease with handing around anything asked of him. So odd that Snafu doesn’t often dwell on it for fear that he’ll uncover some kind of fundamental flaw in himself that makes him so goddamn mean and tight and grudgingly — if ever — generous. But the fuse has been lit now, or rather just the match; hovering so close to the eventual explosion of understanding that Snafu can feel the heat of it. Can smell the gunpowder in his nostrils.

“Do you really think I’m selfish?” He asks, voice low. The drooping evening sun is warming the side of his face, and catching Eugene’s pale eyelashes just so, transforming his dark brown eyes into brand new worlds. He blinks, lashes gossamer. 

“You don’t share.” He mumbles, hand inching towards his beer bottle; sweating a dark ring of condensation into their scrubbed wood table. “You don’t give shit up.” His hand changes tack, and gestures instead to the mismatched crockery they’re eating from. Snafu follows his motion, not yet understanding. “We’ve got enough plates to feed the whole of K Company on and you won’t let me chuck a single one. Mugs, too. And bowls, and dishes, and glasses —”

Snafu cuts him off. “That ain’t about sharin’.”

‘’S the same ballpark.” Eugene counters with, brows pulled down. He shifts, and the light draping across his face drops away. Snafu presses his fingers hard enough into his eyes to see stars in the blackness behind his eyelids, and sighs. 

“I don’t mean anythin’ by it.” He mutters, finally, feeling Eugene’s socked foot nudge up against his bare ones. He cracks his eyes open, unsure of what expression he’ll find on Eugene’s face, but pleasantly surprised by the warmth in his eyes. “I promise.”

“I know.” Eugene says, and leans forward into the beam of light so he can grasp Snafu’s fingers, laid motionless on the tabletop. Snafu watches his eyelashes, watching them flick up and away. “And I’m sorry, seems like all I’ve been doin’ today is blowin’ up on you. It ain’t fair.” He squeezes Snafu’s fingers, expression almost sheepish as he glances back to him.

“You ain’t wrong.” Snafu mumbles, eyes dropping to his cigarette; burning away between his fingers, ignored. “But I forgive you. This heat’s enough to make anyone mad.”

Eugene’s fingers squeeze his own again, and then he draws his hand away to finish his supper; the low buzz of the radio filling the silence between them once more. Snafu smokes his cigarette, drinks his beer, and tilts his head back for the kiss that Eugene gives him when he rises to put his plate in the sink, hand curling sweetly in his hair. 

Despite the both of them making up, the thought stays stuck in Snafu’s head long into the night, twisting around and around in his mind until his whole skull pulses with it. It keeps him up; restless and wired, sweating in the close heat of the apartment, from Eugene’s warm body in the bed next to him. The cicadas scream beyond the windows, competing with the comforting, sweet sounds of Eugene breathing; snuffling a little in his sleep as he presses his face into the mattress, pillow abandoned to the floor. Snafu watches him for a while, a study of light and shadows, lit by the bathroom light spilling out from the cracked door. His long nose, his dark red hair near black in the low light. Snafu’s heart squeezes painfully; heavy, loaded affection stirring in his ribcage as he extends his hand to brush Eugene’s hair back off his face. He doesn’t stir at the light touch, not even when Snafu strokes his thumb along the sweep of his cheekbone, settling into his hair just to feel the thud of his pulse above his ear. 

Snafu would give him the world, wouldn’t he?

The thought shakes him loose, and he tosses the sheets off himself; tangled hot and sweaty around his legs, uncomfortably hot. The bed creaks as he rises, as carefully as possible so as not to wake Eugene, and then Snafu is grabbing his smokes and his lighter, pulling a pair of underwear up around his hips as he paces to the window. He’d gotten his steamy evening hour after all, even if it took a couple beers and Eugene wheedling some french toast out of Snafu, who had graciously (in his opinion) done it with minimal grumbling and even less burnt bits. 

The radio is still going, turned down low to the jazz station as it usually was at nighttime, and Snafu settles back against the window frame as he sparks his cigarette to the soft strains of Miles Davis over the wireless. The world is pitch black below him; just the vague silhouette of himself in the window thrown on the ground below, backlit as he is by the glow of the bathroom light. He watches his shadow raise its cigarette to its mouth, his following exhale casting no shadow. 

_Selfish_ , he thinks, the night dropped so quiet around him that his cigarette makes a rasping noise as he sucks on it. _Selfish_. So quiet even his thoughts feel too loud, too harsh. It’s a difficult topic to stop himself from turning to, and so Snafu surrenders to it. He normally associates this kind of self indulgent rumination with Eugene over himself; knowing his propensity to obsessing and nitpicking over his own thoughts. Snafu has always maintained he’s never had the luxury to spend time turned so inward, but now it’s just him and his cigarette and the flashing eyes of the neighbour’s cat through the night below. Snafu is helpless to the siren’s song of his own mind.

The great stone wall he finds himself running up against, time after time, is the problem of his inability to find the words to express himself to Eugene. It’s simple, when he’s thinking on it like this; silent, collected, with all the time the night has for him. Snafu isn’t an idiot. He knows exactly why he’s always held everything he’s ever owned so very close to his chest, and it’s a poverty thing, a homelessness thing, a _trust_ thing, but the prospect of having to explain all that to Eugene is too daunting to even think about. The selfishness that Eugene had so aptly slid a pin home into earlier was born alongside him, into the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, some leaky, busted shotgun home to too many boys and not enough to share between them. Snafu learned how to hide things before he learned what the hiding meant; and then the stealing, and the lying, the long nights of growling stomachs and mornings full of hungry nausea. The pain of seeing food in windows he couldn’t afford, and the thrill of getting away with stealing it. The bigger thrill that came with _not_ getting away with it, which would send him and his brothers careening through the streets they knew so well, their prizes tucked in their shirts, in their pants, as they outran the law. And then the hungry years, the worst years of his life not spent on some rotting island in the Pacific. The years he had to do anything and everything to keep a roof over his head, food in his stomach, and when that failed the world turned him out into the street, where he stayed into the Corps swept him up.

Snafu finishes his cigarette, but stays on the sill a little while longer, eyes fixed sightless through the insect screen as he cycles through the memories crowding his mind. 

———

The next week proves testing for the both of them; a not completely unforeseen charge from their landlord when he finally comes to fix their stovetop sends them both scrambling for shifts that week, anything to keep them afloat after shelling out for that. It leaves tensions a little high, both Eugene and Snafu snapping at each other far more than usually as they become steadily more and more overworked and exhausted as the week drags on. Somehow, Snafu’s unwillingness to share comes up far more in the following days than ever before, leaving him wondering if perhaps he’s just more attuned to it now that Eugene had said something, or that it may even be getting _worse_. He expresses it to Eugene, one early morning that they spend rushing around getting ready for work instead of with each other. 

“I think it’s probably a little of both.” Eugene mutters, dour. His face is pale and pinched with tiredness; eyes puffy and the long, flat line of his mouth drawn down. He catches Snafu by the shoulder as he passes him, headed for the front door. “Got lunch?”

“Didn’t have time.” Snafu admits, leaning into the gentle grip of Eugene’s hand on his bare bicep. It’s another sweltering day, and Snafu has begun to do away with even the semblance of dressing properly for his shift at the sawmill now. His boiler suit is stuffed in the laundry basket in the bathroom, swapped out for a singlet and jeans. Eugene’s palm is warm against the soft, tender skin of Snafu’s inner bicep. 

“Take mine.” Eugene says, and squeezes Snafu’s arm before releasing him and turning away to step into his shoes. “I’ve got work study ’til two and then I’ll just grab something from the cafeteria before class.” His voice is casual, offhand. Snafu watches the back of his head, wondering how he makes it look so easy, offering up something like that.

He takes the lunch; a ham sandwich wrapped in butcher’s paper, and kisses Eugene before he leaves in the hopes that the gesture can convey his thanks better than his words ever could. The smile he gets in return is soft, and full of understanding. 

The weekend comes and they have no money for beer, no money for heading out to enjoy their Friday night. No money but they have a working stovetop again, so Snafu cooks them both an elaborate gumbo from anything he could rustle up from the fridge. It’s too hot for it, but they sit at the table with the radio going and all the windows open, and share a can of beer Snafu had found knocking around in the fridge. 

“’S a little spicy.” Eugene comments, face pink from the hot food, from the balmy evening. Snafu grins indulgently, watching Eugene eat another mouthful.

“It’ll put hairs on ya chest.” He says, and winks when Eugene rolls his eyes. A breeze blows through the front windows, making the blinds rattle a little, bringing with it the smell of honeysuckle, of cut grass. Snafu is so content he just feels like he could melt into his chair; his stomach full with good, hot food, sitting opposite Eugene with their knees bumping under the table, a grin lighting up his sweet, serious face as Snafu slides the beer his way.

“Can I finish it?” He asks, and Snafu inclines his head, smiling as Eugene raises his eyebrows. “That’s unlike you.”

“Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf.” It’s wishful thinking, and Eugene seems to sense that as he drains the can, brows still raised.

“Uh huh.” He says, not sounding convinced. “Okay.”

Just like every other week, the weekend runs away from them far too quickly, and before they can blink it’s Sunday evening and they’re facing the prospect of another long working week ahead of them. They’re laid up in bed, enjoying the coolness that comes with the evening; the sky streaked through with purple and pink beyond the large bay windows at the other end of the room. Eugene is nude and warm against Snafu’s chest, half flopped over him as their sweat cools and their breaths even out after their second round of sex that evening. Snafu feels loose and sleepy, blissed out from his orgasm and from the soothing little circles Eugene is making on his stomach, scratching through the dark hair there. He hums, exhaling smoke through his nose as Eugene ducks his head to press a kiss to Snafu’s sternum, affectionate and intimate, a smile on his face as he resurfaces. 

“You smell so good.” He mumbles, shifting a little until he can prop his chin on Snafu’s chest. On reflex, Snafu drops his hand into Eugene’s hair, combing his fingers through it as he makes a pleased noise against Snafu’s skin. He grins, eyes flicking up to meet Snafu’s. “Lend me a shirt so I don’t miss you too bad tomorrow.” There’s a playful edge to his voice, teeth sunk into his bottom lip as he inches his fingers over Snafu’s side. 

Snafu narrows his eyes, cigarette aloft as he grins, unsure. “No, boo.” He says, and immediately regrets his words as he watches Eugene’s expression drop, eyebrows pulling together as he shifts, propping himself up so he can see Snafu properly.

“Why?” He asks, expression torn as though he can’t quite work out if Snafu is joking or not. Snafu cuts his eyes away, his good mood souring as he realises he’s ruined yet another nice moment between them.

“Because it’s _mine_.” He mumbles, the compulsion to hold his things close to his chest leaving him helpless to do anything but argue. His stomach sinks; odd, unexplainable discomfort warring with the regret that keeps crashing over him with every minute shift of Eugene’s expression. His poor, stricken face; cheeks still flushed from their sex, the hollow of his throat shining with sweat. Even as the words leave Snafu’s mouth, he knows they make no sense.

“I ain’t gonna keep it.” Eugene says, slowly, wonderingly. “Is that what you’re scared of?”

“No.” Snafu mutters, taking a drag from his cigarette just for something to do to avoid Eugene’s eye. “Maybe.”

“I don’t —”

“I know it don’t make sense.” Snafu snaps, feeling trapped and confrontational suddenly, his back to the wall with the marks from Eugene’s teeth at his throat still throbbing. “I’m sorry. I dunno what to say.”

A long beat of silence stretches between them, and then Eugene murmurs, “Do you not trust me?” The naked reproach in his voice is hard to hear, and Snafu presses his face to his wrist with a groan, fingers cocked to keep his still-burning cigarette away. 

“Gene, cut it out.” He says, frustrated with Eugene, frustrated with himself for being frustrated with Eugene. It’s not his fault that Snafu has no idea why he finds it so difficult to do the smallest gestures; give up half his meal, or the drink he’d bought, or let Eugene borrow his pants because his all are dirty. Normal, average, every day shit. He hates how typical it is that he can’t even do the bare minimum. 

“Well, do you?” 

Snafu raises his head, gaze skittering off across the room to avoid falling on Eugene, not wanting to see his expression as the silence stretches longer. He can’t lie to him and say he does trust him, no matter how much he wants to. Because as much as Snafu hates that facet of himself, he simply doesn’t trust so easily, no matter what. The least he can do is not _lie_.

“Okay.” Eugene says, short and sharp and clipped. Snafu still can’t look at him; eyes fixed on his cigarette, clamped between his trembling fingers. “Okay, I get it.”

“Gene, I —” Snafu begins, finally facing Eugene, whose expression is a twist of hurt and anger.

“No, Snafu,” Eugene cuts him off with a sharp gesture, and rises from the bed, fishing for his underwear amongst the pile of clothes there. The evening has dropped dark around them in that way which summer nights always do; light and light until suddenly the room is pitch around them. “It’s fine.” Eugene continues, a vague figure in the blue darkness, crossing to the floor lamp near the fridge. “Because you get to call the shots, right? And I just get to follow along after you like the lovesick pushover I guess I am.” He turns it on, and the room comes alive in the yellow wash of light. Eugene’s face is dark with annoyance, an edge to his voice that Snafu immediately associates with hurt. “And in a day we’ll make up and in a week we’ll fight about this again, because you ain’t ever gonna start lettin’ me in like I need.”

Very deliberately, Snafu feels something become knocked loose inside him. Some screw that’s been loosening and loosening throughout this whole situation, and he’s surprised by the flood of anger that follows it. “Like _you_ need?” He snaps, drawing the covers up around his waist as Eugene swings his gaze back around to him. “Have you ever thought that it might be _hard_ for me to let you in on some shit?” He pauses, that flood of annoyance loosening his tongue; so frustrated he has no place to go but get honest with Eugene. “Have you ever thought that it ain’t that I don’t trust you, it’s just that you won’t get it?”

Eugene, with his big plantation house and his doctor father and his housewife mother. Eugene, who skipped out on the officer training that he was on track for just because he wanted to come fight with the common men. Eugene, who didn’t understand what a privilege all that was, as well as every other thing in his life. War had made him even more ambivalent towards belongings than he had been at the start as he had quickly grasped the impracticality of lugging around pounds worth of nostalgia and sentimentality. He’d whittled his life down to his Bible and his pencil and his father’s ring, whereas Snafu had done the complete opposite. War had made him an even worse packrat, because now he knows how easily his things can be ripped away from him. It’s why Eugene’s disapproval of his thrifting stings so badly; never has Snafu felt more solid and more situated than with things of his very own. A roof over their heads, even if that same roof leaks during the summer rains. Plates, dishes, furniture, his clothes…every single little thing that Eugene takes for granted and can’t even comprehend life without. But Snafu knows what it was like to live hand to mouth with no place to sleep but a doorway, and the chasm between them formed of that gap in their experiences keeps him at a distance. Not mistrust, but wariness. Eugene is looking at Snafu like he isn’t sure what to say, and Snafu waits, silent, daring him to misstep. The anger is an energy, and a familiar one at that. 

“I ain’t ever considered it.” Eugene says, finally, tipping his chin up to regard Snafu from where he stands. “So why don’t you tell me.” It’s not a question, but the hard edge to Eugene’s voice is gone; that thin thread of true anger. 

Snafu draws the sheets closer to him, uncomfortable and naked and vulnerable. Embarrassed, for what he knows he needs to explain to Eugene, about childhood and poverty and the specific kind of hunger that comes along with not knowing where the next meal will come from. “I don’t know how to.” He mumbles, and that vulnerability must bleed through in his voice as Eugene’s face visibly softens, his pulled up shoulders relaxing as he takes a step back in the direction of the bed. 

“Try.” He says, simply, perching on the edge of the bed with something very careful in his eyes. For a moment Snafu teeters on snapping back, countering with, _well it ain’t so easy_ , before he stops himself. Why can’t it be so easy? Has he been discounting Eugene so far, assuming he won’t understand without even giving him a chance to prove Snafu wrong?

So instead, Snafu takes a deep breath, and then the words he’s been holding back and holding back spill forward into the night. About growing up poor, and fighting for every item you own and meal you eat. So poor that there’s no getting out of it, no end in sight. So poor that you enlist in the military for the prospect of three square meals and a place to sleep, a pension at the end of it. Eugene’s expression barely shifts through the whole meandering trail of Snafu’s words, but his hand creeps to Snafu’s lap, tangling their fingers together as he talks. 

“Okay,” He murmurs, when Snafu finishes, and looks to Eugene with something pleading in his eyes. Eugene’s are big in his face, big and dark and very soft by the heavy glow of the lamp. “Okay, we’ll work on it.” 

Snafu blinks, taken aback by how simply Eugene had put it. “We…?”

Eugene inclines his head, and then he’s moving up the bed so he can draw Snafu close to him. “Sure,” He says, as Snafu goes willingly into his embrace. “You ain’t gotta do a single thing alone anymore.”

The burn of shame is still a sickly thing inside him, and one that Snafu has little experience with since he had begun shoving it down and shoving it down in some half-hearted attempt to leave the past behind. And not very effectively, so it turned out. “Okay.” Is all he can muster, to exhausted to be anything but sincere. 

“I didn’t realise —” Eugene begins, sounding very much like he’s about to launch into an apology, and Snafu draws away, cuts him short. 

“It’s fine.” He mutters, bringing his hand up to cup Eugene’s cheek. “We don’t have to keep goin’ with this tonight.”

Eugene doesn’t look convinced, but acquiesces, seemingly able to tell just from whatever expression Snafu is wearing that he’s too beyond it to continue. The relief doesn’t quite outweigh the lingering embarrassment, but Eugene tucks up closely behind him after shutting out the light and joining him back under the covers, which calms him slightly. Snafu knows he’s never learned to be vulnerable, just as he’s never learned to be generous, or trusting, or a thousand other things he seems to be in a permanent state of arrested development about. His father’s lessons echo out from the darkness of the room; the narrow slice of light from the bathroom thrown against the opposite wall in a rigid streak. _Selflessness ain’t a luxury people like us can afford._ Snafu screws his eyes shut and counts to one hundred just to quiet it, focusing on the steady sounds of Eugene’s breaths and his hands on Snafu’s waist until everything fades to the background, and sleep creeps up to overwhelm him.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading :~)!!


End file.
